Methods of operating a wireless data bus in vehicle platoons

A vehicle, comprising:

• a wireless transceiver;
• and
• a processor coupled to the wireless transceiver, wherein the processor is configured with processor-executable instructions to:
• establish an out-of-hand vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication link with a target vehicle in response to determining a change in a quantity of vehicles included in a platoon is approved wherein the vehicle uses beam steering to establish and maintain the out-of-band V2V communication link and the out-of-band V2V communication link extends laterally relative to a direction of travel of the vehicle more than a first V2V communication link with an initially-adjacent platoon vehicle that is currently immediately adjacent the vehicle and is traveling either in front of or behind the vehicle;
• expand the first V2V communication link for maintaining communications with the initially-adjacent platoon vehicle while changing a relative positioning between the vehicle and the initially-adjacent platoon vehicle;
• establish a second V2V communication link with the target vehicle;
• and
• end the out-of-band V2V communication link in response to the target vehicle taking the place of the initially-adjacent platoon vehicle immediately adjacent to and either in front of or behind the vehicle.

A vehicle, comprising:

• means for establishing and maintaining an out-of-band vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication link with a target vehicle using beam steering in response to determining a change in a quantity of vehicles included in a platoon is approved, wherein the out-of-band V2V communication link extends laterally relative to a direction of travel of the vehicle more than a first V2V communication link with an initially-adjacent platoon vehicle that is currently immediately adjacent the vehicle and is traveling either in front of or behind the vehicle;
• means for expanding the first V2V communication link for maintaining communications with the initially-adjacent platoon vehicle while changing a relative positioning between the vehicle and the initially-adjacent platoon vehicle;
• means for establishing a second V2V communication link with the target vehicle;
• and
• means for ending the out-of-band V2V communication link in response to the target vehicle taking the place of the initially-adjacent platoon vehicle immediately adjacent to and either in front of or behind the vehicle.

A non-transitory processor-readable medium having stored thereon processor-executable instructions configured to cause a processor of a vehicle to perform operations comprising:

• establishing an out-of-band vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication link with a target vehicle in response to determining a change in a quantity of vehicles included in a platoon is approved, wherein beam steering is used to establish and maintain the out-of-band V2V communication link and the out-of-band V2V communication link extends laterally relative to a direction of travel of the vehicle more than a first V2V communication link with an initially-adjacent platoon vehicle that is currently immediately adjacent the vehicle and is traveling either in front of or behind the vehicle;
• expanding the first V2V communication link for maintaining communications with the initially-adjacent platoon vehicle while changing a relative positioning between the vehicle and the initially-adjacent platoon vehicle;
• establishing a second V2V communication link with the target vehicle;
• and
• ending the out-of-band V2V communication link in response to the target vehicle taking the place of the initially-adjacent platoon vehicle immediately adjacent to and either in front of or behind the vehicle.